Hans Hofmann and Josef Albers: The significance of their examples as artist-teachers

Combining college teaching with art-making is a popular career choice for artists; however, there are difficulties in managing this dual career successfully. Therefore, there is a need to train the artist to function as a teacher in the contemporary American university setting. My thesis addresses this problem and attempts to find useful suggestions for artist-teachers on the college level.;I made a pedagogical and historical analysis of Hans Hofmann's and Josef Albers's dual careers as artist-teachers to see how they dealt with the practical problems of teaching. I discuss four aspects of their careers: teaching, art-making, exhibiting, and writing. I compare their pedagogy of art, including specific methods, diagrams, visual aids, and student accounts, along with relevant biographical data, and their teacher-student relationships. Through a pedagogy of learning, Albers and Hofmann explored their own aesthetic problems alongside students.;The lesson to be learned from Hofmann and Albers is to use your imagination and talent to solve environmental as well as the formal problems of art. Teaching for both supplied an arena for investigating ideas, structure and a support system, and professional status. Although they chose different teaching structures in line with their personalities, they both came up with creative strategies to make teaching worthwhile, an integral part of the artist's career.;Since knowing and creating are both activities requiring discipline, imagination, and insight, the university environment is not necessarily inhospitable to artists. Today, the university is a primary site for the best intellectual and creative minds, offering remarkable resources. The key, for the university, is to welcome and appreciate the creative artist. For artists, it is important to protect artistic freedom, while making the classroom a vital experience for both teacher and student.;My study may suggest ways to better the art education system and (perhaps) to raise the status of teachers and improve the quality of education in America.